Posts Tagged ‘abc news’

Do you LOVE “cottage” style decor? “English” Cottage or “French”, or how about “Maine” or “Cape Cod”? Does a little dab do it for you, or is the theme carried on throughout?

I’ve recently come across this little shop — with an online presence (US-shipments only) — Cottage Home: Distinctive Cottage Furniture & Farmhouse Tables in Cape Neddick, Maine. Where to start!?! With their painted furniture, or their wicker. Some truly lovely pieces. And mainly “Made in America“!

Here’s one I just fell in love with, a “library chair” (of course!) out of wicker. It’s from their Saint Augustine Wicker Collection:

What draws me in is the flat arm rests – similar to those found on Adirondack chairs. Those are just super comfortable! The back is wide, and the pattern unusual. The rear legs give this chair an appearance of great stability, and adds some “flair” to the typical chair design.

And look at this RICH PALETTE of colors. Standard are the likes of “Weathered White”, but I’m really drawn to the unusual custom colors (for wicker furniture), like Federal Blue, Colonial Red, or Khaki Green.

Some of these colors even make me think of our Cellular Shade Color palette — their “Slate Grey” would even qualify for our Color of the Month, “Fifty Shades of Grey” sale.

Given that my colleague and I answer queries every day — sometimes we’re chatting with customers as far away as Australia — from our Vermont headquarters, I found last evening’s ABC News broadcast about the return of Call Center Jobs to the US exceptionally interesting:

The thrust of the story is that simple queries and routine customer service (pin number changes or account balance inquiries) are now routinely taken care of via website information and links, which leaves more complex questions for live operators to answer.

The argument is that overseas operators who have learned English for their jobs (and been “given” American-sounding names, like Peggy in those Discover Card commercials!) take more time, and perhaps need more calls, to rectify a situation than a native-English speaker from the same geographic/cultural sphere. “Time is money,” and that means a reverse in the flow of jobs may be upon the country.

Novel idea, huh?

If I may be allowed a bit of self-directed praise, The CellularWindowShades. com customer service team help via email, mail, fax, and phone – we’re knowledgable about our products, and happy to help with more complex problems of in-home design via photos and descriptions. No Peggys here!

Watching last evening’s ABC News broadcast, the “Made in America” segment showed viewers — as well as the Usrys, the Dallas couple who allowed the ABC Team to denude their home of goods not made in the USA — to see some of the furnishings found to be American-made.

Of course, working in the blinds/shades/window treatment industry, I was paying particular attention to what (if anything!) was covering the Usrys’ windows! Here’s what I saw:

Must admit this photo does the drapes even less justice! They don’t hang correctly, being rather “bunched up” instead of crisply pleated… But aside from the drapes (which ABC proudly announced cost only $40 and were from JC Penney), look at the bamboo-looking window shade! A Cellular Window Shade would have kept that Dallas family from frying in the summer Texas heat and would significantly lower their cooling costs.

However, while the drapes were “news,” the window shade didn’t even get an honorable mention — so I have very little (so far?) to tell you about what was chosen. Will keep you posted if I find out more!

By the way, ABC News is challenging viewers to look around their own homes and search out where products come from. My dining room set was made in America: at the Tomlinson Chair Manufacturing Company in High Point, North Carolina. So it generated some jobs, about a 100 years ago… It was made just after World War I!

ABC News has been focusing on “Made in America” the last couple weeks. Last evening’s news broadcast actually denuded an entire house of ALL goods that were not Made in the U.S.!

Actually, I was surprised, not at the items made in China that this family owned (lamps; beds; tableware; even their daughter’s American Girl doll collection, etc.), but the goods from Indonesia, Pakistan, or Japan. Did they shop on vacation a lot, for haunt the likes of Pier One Import stores??

Here’s the couch going; the rug will be next; the curtains will not be staying either. In the end, the house was stripped of goods: even staples likes stove and refrigerator. The kitchen sink was found to have been US-made.

The ultimate goal in this series is to see a household supplied only with American-made goods. We know they will succeed (surely…), but how tough will it be?

The series has already looked into souvenirs obtainable at museum shops in Washington, D.C. “Are Capitol museums selling American goods?” The answer turned out to be ‘no‘. With wholesale prices somewhat higher for American-made items like flag pins, baseball hats, or presidential busts, the goods for sale in these most “American” of museum shops were uniformly “Made in China“.

We at CellularWindowShades.com know that if you seek to cover your windows and skylights with shades that are Made in America you need look no further. Our factory’s Production Team not only manufactures your shades (by human hands rather than automated machines), our parts and fabrics are American-made as well.